olonial," because there are
Colonial Federations as well as Colonial Unitary States. But,
nomenclature apart, the two possible types of Irish Home Rule correspond
to two distinct types of subordinate Constitution. The "Colonial" type
is peculiar to the British Empire, the other is to be found in many
parts of the world--the United States, for example, and Germany, and
Switzerland.

Let us examine these types a little more closely, confining ourselves as
far as possible to the British Empire, past and present, because within
it we can find nearly all the instruction we need. As I showed in my
sketch of the growth of Colonial Home Rule, all the Colonies now classed
as self-governing, together with the American Colonies before their
independence, were originally unitary States, subordinate to the Crown,
each looking directly to Great Britain, possessing no constitutional
relation with one another, and gradually obtaining their individual
local autonomies under the name of "Responsible Government." New Zealand
and Newfoundland alone have maintained their original individualities,
and their Constitutions, from an historical standpoint, are the best
examples of the first of the two types we are considering. Now for the
Federal type. Very early in the history of the American Colonies (in
1643) the New England group formed amongst themselves a loose
confederation, which was not formally recognized by the British
Government, and which perished in 1684. In the next century the War of
Independence produced the confederation of all the thirteen Colonies,
but this was little more in effect than a very badly contrived alliance
for military purposes, and it was a keen sense of the inadequacy of the
bond that stimulated the construction of the Great Constitution of 1787,
the first Federal Union ever devised by the English-speaking race. All
the States combined to confer certain defined powers upon a Federal
Parliament, to which each sent representatives, and upon a Federal
Executive whose head, the President, all shared in electing. At the same
time, each State preserved its own Constitution and the power to amend
it, with the one broad condition that it must be Republican, and subject
to any limitation upon its powers which the Federal Constitution
imposed.

Eighty years elapsed before any similar Federal Union was formed by
Colonies within the British Empire. As we have seen, all the various
North American Colonies which received C